Statewide Iowa — (RI) — The 2020 Iowa Caucuses are nearly 400 days away, but the leaders of Iowa’s two major political parties say it’s already “Caucus season” in Iowa.
The next Iowa Caucuses are scheduled for February 3rd, 2020, but a couple of dozen potential Democratic presidential candidates and two declared candidates have made their way through Iowa already. On the Republican side, Donald Trump has held three campaign-style rallies here since he was elected president in 2016. The priority for the party leaders who are hosting the 2020 Caucuses? Make sure the voting goes smoothly on both sides. GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann says this is the one, strong bipartisan part of the job that he rather enjoys. Kaufmann was the party’s chairman during the 2016 Iowa Caucuses. That’s when Microsoft developed the reporting system for Caucus results from both parties. Troy Price has been the Iowa Democratic Party’s chairman since July of 2017 and he was just reelected to another two-year term in the job. He says whatever system they end up using, they always do a lot of testing around it and they always have back-ups in case it doesn’t work. The Iowa Caucuses are party events, so the two parties have to raise money privately for all the expenses. Iowa Democrats will have NEW expenses this time around, as NATIONAL party leaders have imposed new requirements, like allowing absentee participation.
In 2019, Iowa Democrats will host their presidential candidates at two annual party fundraisers — one in the summer and one in the fall. Kaufmann says the Iowa GOP’s leadership hasn’t yet decided when Republican party fundraisers will be held in 2019.
He says “legitimate” Republican challengers to Trump may emerge in 2019 and Kaufmann says they’ll be welcome at G-O-P events if they avoid “mud-slinging” and focus on their policy differences with the president.
